


said it before and say it again

by TechnicalTragedy



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Grief/Mourning, Multi, Polymachina, Spoilers for episode 64
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:13:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7824412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TechnicalTragedy/pseuds/TechnicalTragedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the thing about the Words is this: you don't feel it when they disappear. you feel it when you notice they're gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	said it before and say it again

**Author's Note:**

> hi, i'm an emotional mess over ep 64 and i've had a polymachina idea floating around anyway so why not combine them am i right?
> 
> title is from [Clear](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y7jyTTu6BA) by PUSHER ft. Mothica

they all had the Words. sprawling black ink across their skin, jagged and flowery and sometimes small, the Words were shared between the eight of them.

 

the Words were common knowledge in vox machina. they all knew they were soulmates, had accepted it easily enough and had hidden it when necessary. they didn’t particularly enjoy hiding their relationship, but knew that it could be taken in the wrong way.

 

but the important thing is that when pike died, her words disappeared. when she came back, new words wrote over where they’d previously been. the same happened when grog died. and when vex died.

when tiberius stormwind dies, vox machina are the first to know.

 

“we’ve decided to adopt a human, then?” percy’s left hip reads.

 

grog has Words he can’t read, Words pike had read to him like bedtime stories. his right pectoral, marred by scarring, bears the Words, “you’re quite large and brutish, aren’t you?”

 

vex and vax have matching Words on their right and left forearms, respectively, “fantastic. Elves.”

 

“i hadn’t realized quite how small gnomes are,” scanlan’s left calf has tattooed on it.

 

pike’s neck says, “i’m tiberius stormwind, from draconia!”

 

vex looks down at her arm and notices blank skin. vox machina joins her in mourning their missing piece.

 

they go to draconia. they find their tiberius and a howl goes up, seven souls grieving over their eighth, their final. he’d promised to come back.

 

their Words are still etched onto his skin, and percy remembers hearing tiberius mention it was almost unheard of for dragonborns to have Words.

 

vax makes a bed of books for tiberius. grog lays him down on it. keyleth sets him aflame. scanlan sings, something soft and slow and sad. vex and percy join in, and three voices rise over the landscape, three languages all translating the same song of sorrow.

 

pike isn’t there, but she clings to keyleth when they return, and soon vex is clinging onto them both, and then the boys all follow suit and grog tries to wrap his arms around everyone and does it, for the most part.

 

“he died a hero,” percy says. he’s in his shell, the one he escapes to when he’s feeling overwhelmed by emotion.

 

“do you think he knew we didn’t hate him for having to leave?” keyleth asks.

 

vex replies, “he loved you so, so much,” but all keyleth hears is her title is tiberius’s voice.

 

“we had our differences, but i loved him,” scanlan says. he's rubbing over the blank spot on his calf.

 

grog huffs a laugh that catches in his throat. “he was our friend,” he says.

 

pike puts her hand over his, and even through the ogre gauntlets grog can feel sarenrae’s warmth. “he was more than that.”

 

“he was family,” vax finishes for her.

 

keyleth curls halfway into grog’s lap and pike strokes through her hair. percy, scanlan, and vax all reach for each other on instinct, just needing the contact. grog reaches out to tug vex into his lap as well, and buries his face in pike’s hair.

 

the big room they’d commandeered as their own is solemn and dimly lit. vox machina remembers tiberius, reminiscing about him, until they all eventually begin to drift to sleep.

 

“hey, uh,” grog says as he’s nodding off, “vax, is tiberius, y'know, okay on the other side? did he make it, or whatever?”

 

vax lays his head on grog’s shoulder, the other one occupied by his twin. “yeah, big guy. we’ll see him again someday.”

 

grog nods, and vax feels the movement on his scalp. “then i guess, uh, tibsy? wherever you are, buddy, if you can hear me, we miss you. we’ll see you someday.”

 

“i’m sure, wherever he is,” vax says, “tiberius is listening.”

 

the room goes quiet, swallowing vox machina whole.

 

they dream of Words, of a world without Words, of the hollow feeling in their chests and the empty spaces between them. they dream of tiberius.

 

**Author's Note:**

> come cry w me on tumblr [@aramente](http://aramente.tumblr.com)


End file.
